Annapolis Capital Punishment

Thanks to a resolution pushed by Aldermen Shropshire and Stankivic, Senator John Astle has introduced legislation asking for the state to commit funds to study linking Annapolis and Baltimore by rail as well as some sort of service from Annapolis to Parole. Remember Parole--it's the city that's about to eat Annapolis? It could have been the crowning example of Smart Growth, but instead we get, well, we'll see.

What bothers CP is the fact that this goes on while our city and city leaders continue to ignore the fact that we already have a bus system, a fairly good one in fact for a city this size, but much needs to be done to improve it. In other words, we are ignoring what we own, control and can fairly easily improve while we go to the state to ask for a lot of money to consider doing a really big thing. Consider the fact that P's wife has to commute by car to her job in Baltimore, but we'd all prefer an express commuter bus. However, Governor Ehrlich scrapped that route in a "cost saving" measure. Have our good Aldermen said a word about that? No.

To make matters worse, when Senator Astle introduced the bill on the Senate floor, The Capital quoted him as saying, "Annapolis is really an isolated town...We have no real bus transportation here; we have no rail transportation." An isolated town? No real bus transportation here? CP was instrumental in returning intercity bus service to Annapolis after an 18 year hiatus. For nearly ten years, Annapolis has been served by multiple Greyhound buses every day linking us with Washington, Baltimore and by extension, all of North America. We have city buses linking with light rail and commuter buses serving Washington and a frequent local bus to and from Baltimore. There is no rail, but there was until 1950 when oddly enough, buses took its place along Ritchie Highway. But it is incorrect and really a disservice to say we have no real bus transportation here.

It should be better and we deserve more. I wrote in this regard to Senator Astle and the District 30 delegation, urging them to reinstate commuter service between Baltimore and Annapolis. Certainly if we can spend $600,000 to study rail, we can get some express buses going, and these buses will prove the need for rail.

The Capital did editorialize in favor of the study, but without surprise, The Capital picked up on and repeated Senator Astle's comments by saying, "As the senator points out, the state's capital city is not now served by bus or rail." This is so typical of Capital reporting. It prints something that is wrong. Then it editorializes on it. Then Eric Smith does a cartoon about it. Well, he used to do cartoons. This leaves the less well-informed reader believing, "There is no bus service in Annapolis".

The Capital's columnist Eric Hartley opined as well. At least he was more circumspect when he said, "And beyond the staggering cost, there's another little thing: We don't even have buses.That's not literally true, of course, but compared with some counties of the same size and affluence, Anne Arundel's public transportation is pathetic."

Yes Eric, but are we talking intercity buses, intracity buses, city buses, county buses? In AA County, we have commuter buses, Annapolis bus service, Howard County bus service and MTA service. It's fairly extensive in some areas, but non existent in others. We need to get our definitions correct lest we mislead.

Hartley added, "County Executive John R. Leopold pointed to a study showing only 8 percent of people in the county use public transportation to commute." Well, actually eight percent is not bad, but my point is that when you offer little service, how can people partake? In other words, it's like saying few people go mountain climbing in Florida or nobody takes beach vacations at the North Pole.

Hartley concludes with a reasonable concept. He writes, "So don't hold your breath waiting for that Green Line train to BWI. Especially given the budget realities, we can't just sit and hope for massive rail projects that might never come. We need things that make sense now.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't plan decades ahead; indeed, a lack of vision and imagination from elected officials is one reason sprawl has sprawled so much.

But it's like the old saying: Crawl, walk and then run.

When it comes to public transportation in the county, we're still trying to roll over."

Exactly my point Eric. While Sam and Julie want to talk rail rail and rail, they ignore the bus system that we the people of Annapolis already own and operate and they ignore the relatively easy and inexpensive method to commute to Baltimore--with an express bus! To read the complete columns, visit: www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/readne/2008/01_27-04/COL